


Hell is Other People; Specifically, You

by starberby



Category: Original Work
Genre: Afterlife, Alcohol Abuse, Breaking The Rules, Death, Demons, Fantasy, Gen, Hate, Hell, Horrible People, Murder, Queer Characters, Supernatural Elements, Swearing, Work In Progress, a general disregard for human decency, angry boys, hr is a nightmare, i have no clue how to tag original works, they hate each other so much, work relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-14 07:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14764947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starberby/pseuds/starberby
Summary: "You wish you could go back in time to grab your past self by the shoulders, to shake him so hard that the last of the blood runs out of his dying body. “You are about to go to Hell,” you’d say, “and they are going to give you a choice: torture for eternity, or a plea deal. For the love of god, man—don’t take the plea deal.”"Cyrus is dead. He's okay with that. He's not okay, however, with his afterlife. He's an Agent of Hell, a lackey for the devil, and forced to work with a fellow agent named Smithers. The problem is, Smithers is as terrible of a human being as Cyrus is. He makes Cyrus' life a--well, a living Hell.These two broken people, who would probably be happier rotting in a coffin, get tired of their (literal) dead-end job. So they quit. Disregarding the fact that quitting isn't possible in their line of work, they head off to try to make something of their afterlives. Together. Because as much as they hate each other, they need to stick together to outrun their former boss.First time posting an original work online, let's see how far I can go. Thanks for your support!





	1. Chapter 1

Working for Satan isn’t as bad as it sounds. As an Agent of Hell, you get your corporeal form back, affixed with a post-lifetime warranty that keeps you from worrying about your health. Every day you spend “cursed to your fate” is another day you get to watch the sun rise, get to have your morning coffee, get to stretch and close your eyes and feel your heart beat like a moth in clasped hands. It’s still here, and you are still here, and although you live now as a snake among men, you’re happy. Or you would be. If not for the fact that, a week into your afterlife, your higher-ups drop this bombshell on you: what’s happened so far has been a trial term. From now on, you’re to work the way the real agents do—with a partner.  
You would not call yourself a ‘people person’. In fact, the only upside to your murder is that, now that you’re dead, you no longer have to deal with other humans. Now, though, you’ll be spending the rest of your damnation with a stranger at your side. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so ready to accept a plea deal from devils.  
Your boss—using that term loosely, as ‘boss’ implies you could ever quit—set you up with all of the amenities needed for physical survival, including an apartment that’s pretty nice for being in the bad area of town. Apparently, your partner lives in the same complex, and you’re to meet them in the parking lot Monday morning. You’d try to argue your way out of it, but your lines of communication to the underworld are shut down, presumably until you stop whining. Well, damn. Looks like your haggling skills need work.  
You get up with the sun on Monday and get ready for work, brushing your blond hair back and squinting into the mirror. First impressions, first impressions—what’s the most concise way to make this partner learn you don’t give a fuck about them? As your mother always said, the most important thing is to be yourself. You rub the stubble on your jaw and decide you’ll explain it to them plainly. Having reached this decision, you head out onto the parking lot.  
You light a cigarette and let smoke out through your teeth, waiting by your work-supplied hummer for someone to show. It’s been long enough for you to start spacing out when someone taps you on the shoulder from behind.  
“jesus!” you shout, and your cigarette falls to the ground. You grind it out with your toe when you turn to see—a kid. A fucking kid, not even twenty, he has to be. There’s no way this is your partner. Except, he’s wearing the typical agent uniform, a suit and shirt and tie all the muted black of a shadow on asphalt, accented with a crimson tie clip. Not only that, but he’s dripping the aesthetic of ‘wicked’: god busted out the protractors the day this kid was made, as he’s needle-thin and just as sharp. His hair is a shock of crow feathers and his left eye is permanently shut, the eyelid dipping into his socket and run over with a comet-tailing scar. A wound that nasty must have been what did him in, when he was living.  
He smiles at you toothily, pink tongue flashing where his canines don’t match up. “Hiya!” is the first thing he says to you, bouncing on his heels. You sigh.  
“I suppose you’re my partner?”  
“Looks like it! The name’s Smithers, by the way. And you are?”  
“Cyrus.” You give him your best vitriolic glare, eyes half-lidded and piercing like two partially-eclipsed suns, and you loom in close enough for him to feel your breath. “Listen, kid. I don’t care who you are or how you got here, and I’m not in the mood to lie about that. I’m here to do a job. Not to be your buddy, not to deal with all of,” you gesture up and down at him, “this. I’m not going to be your friend, and it’s best that you accept that quickly. Got it?”  
His smile flinches, then pops up again full-force, showing molars that glisten like wet marble. “Oh, don’t worry about me, Cyrus! You see,” he lets out a sharp two laughs, a crow-cackle, “I don’t give a fuck about you, either!”  
Then he spins around and lets himself into the passenger seat of your car. “Well?” he says when you just stand there. “Get in! Eternity waits for no one!”  
You still don’t move, and he starts honking the horn. People open their windows, squinting out to the scene below them, wondering what kind of asshole is waking them up at this hour. You rub the bridge of your nose and groan.  
What the Hell have you gotten yourself into?

 

You wish you could go back in time to grab your past self by the shoulders, to shake him so hard that the last of the blood runs out of his dying body. “You are about to go to Hell,” you’d say, “and they are going to give you a choice: torture for eternity, or a plea deal. For the love of god, man—don’t take the plea deal.”  
However, time travel isn’t real, not even for the dead, and you’re left to deal with your decision’s consequences. You’re an Agent of Hell, now, which means you shouldn’t be tortured. However, it seems that Smithers was assigned to you specifically to make your life—well, to make it Hell.  
After the exchange in the parking lot, you two need to get to work. However, as soulless drones are apt to do, you stop for coffee first. Smithers drums his heels against the front of his seat and tells you to buy from a cafe near the apartment, and you’d say no just to spite him, but the place has a great reputation and you’ve been dying to try it out. The only problem is that it has no drive-through, you have to go in and order it all yourself.  
“Make mine triple cream, triple sugar, with three shots of vanilla, please!” Smithers calls out the window as you enter the store. You nod and head inside.  
It’s been a week, but you’re still having trouble adjusting to the fact that you aren’t human anymore. The first time you looked at another person after your death, your breath caught in your throat, your heart caught in your stomach, and your feet caught on the pavement, making you crash to the ground like a fool. But it’s just that shocking, because you can see the people around you, and know that not a single one of them is clean.  
Take the cafe customers, for instance. Sin is crawling up their throats, slicked onto their bodies, caked on in layer after layer of scarlet. It burns as vibrant as a rash, staining them without their knowledge, and it still turns you into a bit of a hypochondriac. You take your place in line, so distracted by the ethical filth around you that you don’t think too much when you order the coffees. You bring them back to the car, and only realize something’s off when Smithers takes a sip and makes a little cough sound. He swallows with a grimace and turns to you.  
“What is this?” His naturally-high voice has bent up another octave. Your brow furrows.  
“It’s called coffee.”  
“Yes, coffee—just. Plain. Coffee.”  
“Fuck. You wanted cream and all that stuff, right? Sorry.” You’re mean, sure, but you own up to your mistakes. “It won’t happen again,” you say as you pull out of the parking lot.  
“Wait, where are we going?”  
“To work. We’ve wasted enough time getting drinks from this place, we should really get going now.”  
“But—the coffee.”  
“Like I said, it won’t happen again.”  
He’s quiet for the rest of the drive. It’s relaxing. As long as you keep him unhappy, maybe this partnership will work out, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

As an Agent of Hell, you aren’t actually a devil. You have the ability to change your shape to replicate one, most likely as a tool to intimidate others, but you personally have no role in torturing people or tempting sin or anything. Instead, your job is to visit the recently-deceased, and figure out where they’re headed. It’s grunt work, but to be expected, and allegedly better than the alternative.  
Your senses hone you in on which direction to drive to reach your first case. You follow your intuition and soon enough, you and Smithers are parked in front of an alleyway in the warehouse district. There’s a dead body lying on the concrete in the alley, surrounded by feasting crows, and the spirit who once belonged to said body is perched atop a dumpster. She sees you, but focuses her attention back on her corpse until you get out of the vehicle and speak to her directly.  
“Excuse me? Ma’am?”  
She flinches. Her face, albeit deadpan, is tear-streaked.  
“Ma’am?” You try again, louder. She stares at you without speaking.  
“Me?” she eventually whispers.  
“Yes, you. You see, we are Agents of Hell. We’re here to—“  
“Can you see me?”  
“Yes, I can see you. Ma’am, I am here to—“  
She points to Smithers, who’s standing beside you. Taking the job of sidekick, you hope. “Him, too?”  
“Yep!” he says.  
“We can both see you, okay? We’re from Hell. We’re here because—“  
“And can you touch things, too? Real, living things?”  
jesus, you’re starting to see why this woman was murdered. You close your eyes and sigh, “Yes, we can. Any other questions?”  
She points at her body. “Make the birds go away. Please.”  
You grit your teeth. “Not a question, but okay. Smithers?”  
Your partner eagerly races forward, waving his arms and cackling as he chases the crows off. Their leaving reveals a body partially-eaten already, torn open by the birds just as much as it had been by knife wounds.  
“I’ve been waiting here all night,” she whispers, and her voice is angled in the wrong direction. She can’t bear to lift her head, to look either of you in the face. “I’ve had to watch the birds swarm. I can’t touch them, can’t scare them away. But they can sure touch me.”  
“Yes. Well.” You shift from foot to foot. “You don’t need to think about that, anymore. We’re here to guide you to the next part of your existence, okay?”  
“We’re here to take you to Hell!”  
“Smithers! No, we’re not,” you say to the woman. She has sunburn-pink blotches up and down her dark arms, but that’s it. You explain to Smithers, “She’s practically spotless, sin-wise. Not one of ours.”  
“You must need glasses!” Smithers’ shouting makes the woman flinch again. He leans over close to her, and she tries to move away. “She’s oozing sin,” he says.  
“Sin the colour of pink lemonade,” you retort.  
“Sin everywhere. And that’s only where we can see. For all we know, she’s got a crimson mark somewhere else on her.”  
He grabs her—agents have the ability to interact with the physical and spiritual with ease—and she screams as he tries to tear her hoodie off. You lunge in and rip the kid away from her, but it takes more effort than you’d expect. You’re strong, but it’s hard to get his claws out of her fabric. He struggles against you and you have to pin him against the wall to hold him in place, holding him a few inches off the ground and pressing your arm into his throat until he starts gurgling. His eye turns streetlight-amber, his teeth grow into inch-long fangs, but you don’t let him go. Not even when he scratches at you, and manages a kick to your shin that makes you curse.  
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you seethe. Releasing enough pressure to let him breathe, you glare as he coughs and spits.  
“It is our job to condemn the sinners, Cyrus.”  
“Yeah, but not like this. Not like a fucking Salem judge from the sixteen hundreds! She’s not that bad, and we’re letting her go. Got it?”  
Smithers aims another kick, but you sidestep it while maintaining your hold on him. “Fuck you,” he says, and you press down on his throat until he sputters.  
“Got. It?” you repeat. He glares but says nothing. After a few seconds you drop him, and he falls against the wall, gasping. You step back.  
“I’ll contact heaven, and they’ll have people down for you soon,” you tell the woman, who is watching this all while shaking. “Um. Sorry about your circumstances. Rest in peace, I guess.”  
She doesn’t respond. You turn back to Smithers, who’s sitting down now, not shooting knives with his eye so much as he is throwing machetes. “Come on, kid.”  
“I’m not your kid,” he says. But he doesn’t move. You end up dragging him back to the car by his arms. He’s limp, like a petulant child, the whole way.  
“We’re normally way more professional,” you call to the woman, although it’s a lie. She stares with eyes the size of moons. You throw your partner into the car—backseat, fucker, because it’s time for a time-out—and drive off, radioing your higher-ups to tell them it’s the good side’s job to handle her.  
“Are you going to behave?” You stare at Smithers through the rear-view mirror. He’s laid across the backseat, and kicks your chair in response. “Well, too bad, because we have to keep working, anyway. You’re staying in the car until you can keep from assaulting the dead people.”  
jesus christ. You thought having a partner was bad, but now you’re playing babysitter, too. You manage to get a few more jobs done without him bothering you—he actually stays in the car, believe it or not—but you doubt he’ll stay this way tomorrow. This entire experience is one badly-blended masochism smoothie.  
You brood while driving, but have to park your car after realizing that you’re rounding the same neighbourhood over and over. Your senses are going haywire, now that you notice them. You’re supposed to be feeling the intuition to follow a certain route, but instead your brain feels pulled in directions at once. In the back, Smithers perks up, and you can tell he feels it too.  
“Any clue what’s going on?”  
“Nope,” he says. “Maybe it means we’re done for the day?”  
You’re about to start driving home when there are gunshots behind you. Instantly, your sense comes back, advising a sharp U-turn.  
“Guess that’s sorted,” you say, and follow it to the latest dead.  
You don’t know if it’s the both of your pasts that lead to you deal with so many murder victims, or if it’s just an unlucky day for the living. It’s not like you care, either way. You get out of the car and Smithers slides out the back, bounding to catch up with you. He looks up at the apartment complex in front of you both. “We’re going in there?”  
“Well, I was hoping you’d stay in the car.”  
“The car is boring. I want to see dead people.”  
He bounces up the front steps, swinging open the door that would be locked to anybody normal. It closes behind him just as you make it to the entrance. Once you let yourself in, you feel the urge to head up to . . . the fourth floor? No, fifth. The two of you get in the elevator.  
Being an agent requires you to bypass all of the messy, physical aspects of death. You think about being unseen, and you are; you don’t need to deal with any locked doors or barriers on your way to the soul. Likewise, you aren’t supposed to play a part in the aftermath of the death. You judge the victim and you leave. Easily, cleanly, quickly.  
You and Smithers enter the apartment. The blinds are drawn, the lights are off, and the only light that sneaks through the edge of the windows is a cold gray. Somebody won’t stop screaming, but the fact that nobody else in the building is rushing to find out why tells you that it’s the victim who’s shredding their lungs with grief. Smithers flicks the lights on.  
There’s a dead body heaped against the wall, slicks of blood pooling around it. The victim, another young woman it seems, is curled up in front of her body with her forehead resting on the carpet. A bullet exit wound consumes the back of her skull. She wails like the murder is still happening, and you have to stifle the urge to tell her, “Just. Shut. Up! It’s over already, there’s no use crying about it.” It’s how you feel, but even you can tell it would be a little harsh to say.  
The killer isn’t much better off. He’s about the same age, hiding from himself in the same position, except huddled in the corner. He hasn’t noticed that the lights have turned on, or that the door opened. You probably wouldn’t need to turn invisible, to do this job. He’d weep in that corner until the cops showed up.  
You turn to the spirit. Looks pretty dirty, to you—Pepto-Bismol spilled over her limbs, and, oof, a cherry stain on the back of her neck. She’s definitely one of yours.  
“Hey.”  
Her head shoots up, she sees you, and she goes scrambling backwards, hitting the wall and trapping herself there. You put your hands out, as if showing you hold no weapon makes you any less dangerous. It’s an attempt at placation, at least.  
“Who are—why—how can—” She’s panting, made into a werewolf by anxiety, and when you take a step forward her fists go up. You decide to humour her, pretending you couldn’t take her out right now if need be. Or just let her try to hit you, and watch her body fall through you like you’re a trapdoor. You step back, give her room to breathe.  
“You don’t need to worry about what’s happened, okay?” you tell her. “You’re dead. It’s done. Time to move on.”  
She grimaces. “You’re lying.”  
“Does it look like it?” You gesture back to the body. “Listen. It looks like you’ve had a rough go, but it’s over. Calm down and let me talk to you.”  
“You’d better talk to your buddy, first.”  
Turning, you see that Smithers is transfixed, staring at the body and breathing through his teeth. He looks at the handgun lying on the carpet, then to the blood spattering the wall. Using three fingers on his right hand, he wipes a streak of blood off. As he stares at it, his digits form into claws.  
“Smithers, what are you doing,” you caution. He turns to the murderer.  
“Smithers.”  
His teeth elongate, and a forked tongue lolls out of his mouth. His eye flashes amber, horns sprout, and a barbed tail unfurls behind him. You can tell he’s turned himself corporeal, and you rush to stop him, but in one swift move he drags the killer by the ankles into the middle of the room.  
The poor sinner has no time to be surprised. He screams for his life, and for the second time on the first day of working with Smithers, you’re forced to fight him off of someone.  
You kick him in the side and he yelps like a dog, rolling off of the murderer. You had to do a lot of this stuff when you worked as a bodyguard, but Smithers is slippery; you have him pinned one moment and he’s sliding out from under you the next. The two of you grapple until you’re standing a foot apart, panting like overworked machines, waiting for someone to make the next move.  
“What the Hell is going on?” the killer shrieks from his place on the sidelines.  
“Murder is a cardinal sin, shitlord!”  
“Hey!” You step forward and Smithers tenses. “He’s not getting away with it,” you explain. “Just look at his face. He has guilt dripping off his forehead.”  
“What? What’s on my forehead? I don’t feel anything—“  
“Shut up,” you tell the killer, and he clams up. You focus back on Smithers.  
“We’ll get him soon enough, just not while he’s living. You can’t go attacking human beings. They’re not our jurisdiction.”  
He squirms, rolling his shoulders and looking down at the body. He refuses to respond.  
“What’s the problem, anyway? He killed a sinner. I thought you liked people getting what they deserve.”  
“I don’t like killers,” he mumbles defiantly.  
“That’s one normal thing about you, then. Come on, kid. Let it go.”  
He growls, “I’m not your kid.” His eye stays on the body—actually, no. It’s roamed, it’s landed on the gun now.  
Oh no. The gun.  
You reach for it, but it’s too late. He grabs it before you can stop him. And he kills you with it.  
First shot hits your gut, heat filling your stomach before the pain rushes in. The next one’s lucky, right between the eyes. You’re dead before you hit the floor.  
When you revive, Smithers is dragging you by the ankles over worn carpet. You recognize your apartment complex by its ugly floral wallpaper, and the smell of old tomato soup. He must be returning you to your place. You break with your hands, pressing them into the carpet, and when he feels you resisting he looks over his shoulder.  
“You’re alive again.”  
“Astute observation. Could you let me go?”  
He drops you. You try to stand but end up careening forward, falling into him. He pushes you off and you prop yourself against the wall.  
“Did you take care of the job?” you ask, too tired to get into the semantics of what ‘taking care’ means. He nods, and that’s enough. You’re about to say, “Good,” when you’re overcome with a wave of nausea.Your gag reflex triggers, and you retch and sputter until you spit a bullet out onto the floor. Smithers kicks it far down the hall.  
“Although fatal, the wounds weren’t too messy. You should feel normal again by tomorrow,” he says. You decide not to ask how he knows that. “Come on,” he tells you, and you awkwardly fall into him again, leaning so heavily you’re surprised his coat hanger frame can keep you up. You let him take you home.  
Once you’re at your apartment he transfers you to the doorframe. Instead of leaving immediately, he hangs around, shifting his weight from foot to foot and staring you in the chest instead of the face. You wonder—is this what him being sorry looks like?  
“You feeling alright?” You cock your head, trying to hold your smugness in until after he apologizes. You love it when jerks have to act humble. He stares at you with a lamb’s eye.  
“Cyrus?”  
“Yes?” You lean in, waiting to drink it up.  
“Don’t think that my killing you made up for all of today.”  
You blink. “What.”  
His eye flashes amber. “I don’t like people touching me, or telling me what to do. So keep that in mind for tomorrow, alrighty? There are things that hurt worse than death, and you can’t run from me if we’re partners for eternity. So watch your step.” His smile’s a broken dinner plate. “Goodnight!” He pivots on his heal, heading to an apartment only a few doors down. You shake your head and close your door, reminding yourself that your shift for the day is done. You refuse to think about the kid again until you’re back on the clock.  
Lurching to your bathroom, you prop yourself up with the sink and observe the damage in the mirror. Blood has congealed over your face and scalp, gunking up your slicked-back hair. Other than that, you still look bad—even as somebody who died due to blunt-force trauma. You have fault-line scars splintering out from your right temple, a crooked nose, and a permanently-dislocated jaw; every time you close your mouth, it makes an audible click. In addition to all of the usual problems, though, you look drained. Features sunken and movements slow, you match a cancer patient’s aesthetic. Yes, you decide, you look malignant.  
You splash cold water in your face, but that doesn’t change anything. Looking into your eyes long enough makes you realize that your reflection is ashamed of you. You turn away and heave off of the sink, stumbling to the living room, not bothering to argue with yourself.  
Honey-thick light slips through the windows. You look for the sunset but can’t find it behind all the high-rises, and for the first time since dying, you miss the life you had before. After all, was this what you wanted? What your natural life had worked towards? You’d never been religious, never thought that you needed to deal with post-mortem consequences. The reality of an afterlife hadn’t exactly been a good surprise.  
One of the first things you did when moving in was unhook your smoke detectors, and now you light a cigarette and wander to your mostly-bare kitchen. You’ve never been great at sleeping, and there’s a long, empty night between now and your next shift. With nothing better to do, you pour yourself a glass of whiskey, hold it up to the light, and opt instead to swig from the bottle. You’re forty-six; you’re dead; you wish your life was over.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, you awake to Smithers hammering on your door. “You’re lake, you’re late, you’re late!”  
Coming to your senses, you discover that you’ve been passed out on the living room floor. Rubbing your cheek reveals that the pattern of the rug is pressed into your skin, and running a hand through your hair reminds you that you still haven’t showered the blood out. Viscously, you arise and head towards the ruckus.  
“You know you have the power to open any door at any time, right?” you say to as a greeting. Instead of responding to this, he looks you up and down.  
“Wow!” He exclaims. “You look like shit!”  
“Thanks. Why are you here?”  
“To go to work, idiot!”  
You groan. “I died last night, Smithers. I’m taking a sick day.”  
He pulls the hummer’s keys from his pocket and swings them around his finger. “So I get to head out on my own?”  
You snatch them from him. “Not a chance in Hell. Nobody’s going to care if we take a day off, kid.”  
“I’m not your kid.”  
“Whatever.” You swing the door shut and let it slam, then lean your forehead against it and will him to go away. After a few moments, you hear his footsteps recede on the other side of the door. Thank god.  
You take out your phone. You plan to spend the day sleeping off this hangover, but first you have an errand to run.  
After dialing 666-666-6666, you put the phone up to your ear. It rings, rings, rings—and there you go. It feels like your soul is getting clotheslined, and your vision goes black. You’d be better off dead. Then it’s over.  
You’re sitting in one of many padded chairs in a small room. The walls are beige and the floor is hardwood, and innocuous landscapes frame the walls. A coffee table in front of you displays well-worn back issues of various magazines. It’s a normal waiting room, but you can smell brimstone, and the temperature is hot enough to make you pull at your collar.  
The only other person around is a man sitting across from you, slouching in his chair like he’s half-melted, flipping slowly through a National Geographic. His eyes roam up to meet yours, and he offers a bored, “Hey.”  
“Hi,” you say, and sit up in your chair. You’re never interacted with another agent other than Smithers; all of your other Hell contacts are higher-ups. You don’t know how to act around this black-suited man. His apathy doesn’t come off as a jab at you, particularly, but rather as his general mood. He stretches his arms out, grimaces, and relaxes.  
“What’re you here for?”  
“I’m asking for a new partner.”  
A scoff. “Good luck. I’ve asked for a replacement for years, and the only reason why I’m getting one now is that my old partner caused such a problem, they transferred her to Hell.”  
“They made her a Devil?”  
“They made her a victim. So if you’re ratting on your partner for being a jerk, make sure it’s really for something big, and that you’re willing to let them burn in the fiery pits of the Underworld forever.”  
“My partner shot me dead yesterday.”  
He nods. “That’s a valid reason.”  
A door to the right of you opens, and another agent storms out, slams the door, and screams wordless vitriol at the room. Then she leaves out the door to the left.  
“Looks like the office is ready for you,” the man across from you says. “Don’t worry about me, I’m stuck in waiting limbo until they finish the partner assignment process again. Have fun and good luck.”  
He salutes you and you nod in return before heading to the room. Agents can’t see each other’s sins; his brown skin looks as smooth and unblemished as a desert stretching to the horizon. You wonder what kind of evils he did to end up here. Then you close the office door behind you and turn around to see your boss, and your thoughts funnel into nothing but your desperation to be rid of Smithers.  
Contrary to popular belief, Agents of Hell never interact with Lucifer himself. He’s an unseen ruler, a quiet monarch, and you’re thankful for that. Instead of Satan, you only have to deal with Beatrice. She sits behind a desk in a sharp red blazer over a black button-down. Her hair is coiffed, her glasses are pressed up high on her nose, and when she sees you, she clasps her hands together.  
“Cyrus. You’re looking rough.”  
“Trust me, I feel much worse.” You sit down across from her. This chair is a lot less comfortable, and you assume that’s on purpose.  
“You’re here because of a problem,” Beatrice says. “You might as well tell me about it.” She stares you down while sitting with perfect posture; a person does not become a Human Resources Manager for Hell without having the power to intimidate.  
You grimace. It’s like being a child again, getting chastised for being a tattle tale. “It’s my partner,” you tell her, and get nothing but a neutral-faced nod. She pulls a folder out of a filing cabinet and flips through its contents, which you imagine hold all kinds of dirty details about you and why you’re an Agent. She pulls out another one, which you assume is Smithers’s. She frowns.  
“He killed you?”  
“How do you know that already?”  
“We’re the underworld. We know everything that goes on above us. Were his actions justified?”  
“How could killing me be—“ You huff. “I was trying to keep him from killing a human. Who, in turn, killed a different human. But we aren’t supposed to deal with that. It’s important to follow the rules of the job.”  
“I see.”  
“And it’s not just that, either. He’s aggravating, and terrible at making decisions. If not for me, he’d have sent so many people to Hell who didn’t deserve it. He’s a risk to people’s afterlives.”  
“You say he’s aggravating?” She pulls out a pen, clicking it on. “Explain that.”  
“Well, it’s not as important as the whole ‘risk to people’s afterlives’ thing, but he’s a—can I call him a little shit?”  
“I’d prefer obscenity-free notes.”  
“Then he’s a scoundrel, who acts like he was raised by hyenas. I know I’m a bad person, but he’s actually villainous. If you need me to, I could write you an essay on why I think he should go to Hell.”  
Her eyes flick up to you. “So, in addition to partner reassignment, you’re trying to get Smithers sent to Hell?”  
“No—I mean—the guy in the waiting room—“  
“Cyrus, considering all evidence presented to me, I am denying your request.”  
“What?” You push off of your chair, slamming your palms on her desk. “Did you listen to a thing I’ve said? He’s deplorable. He’ll mess the whole system of saints and Sinners up!”  
She closes her eyes tightly. “Cyrus. Hell is not a place where happy people go. I have had a long, hard day of people yelling at me about their problems, so I am going to level with you. None of it matters, man!”  
You take your hands off the table. “What do you mean?”  
“I mean, the jobs aren’t real. Agents of Hell—as if! Don’t you think that, if we can see people’s sin, we can figure out where they need to go pretty easily? We don’t need people out and about, doing that job for us.”  
“Then, why are we?”  
“Because Hell is a place for spirits to be punished. Not Devils. Those who work here deserve a bearable existence, and sometimes, the people who get sent here are—well,” she waves a hand around, grimacing while searching for the word. “They’re assholes. They’re likely to cause as much suffering as they endure, and we don’t want to deal with them. So we offer them a ‘plea deal’, and who isn’t going to accept an alternative to Hell? They end up being humanity’s problem, we clean up any mistakes they make and count is as necessary collateral damage, and it’s no skin off our backs. And they’re happy, because they get to keep living, in a way. It’s a second chance.”  
“You’re shitting me.”  
“I assure you I am not. So, no, we’re not going to let Smithers into Hell unless he causes so much anguish to humans that we need to take him down—and don’t think for a second about goading him into causing chaos, because we will figure out what happened and, once processing is done, you’ll join him. Just like Raphael in the waiting room will be joining his partner, eventually.”  
“But—can’t you reassign him, at least?”  
“Cyrus, you may not be in Hell, but you’re still a Sinner. If this partnership is painful for you, we count that as two birds being killed with one stone. Sorry.”  
You try arguing with her, but she won’t hear it. You leave the office, and pass Raphael without a goodbye, leaving through the other door. Instantly, you feel that same soul-ripping pain as before, and then you’re back in your apartment. Your phone is still at your ear, although the call has just ended. You put the phone in your pocket and sigh.  
There has to be another way out. You just haven’t thought of it yet.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, you open your front door just as Smithers is about to start knocking. He fakes disappointment when he sees you, whining, “You washed your hair! And I thought you were trying to go redhead.”  
You ignore this comment. “What’s going on with you?” you say instead, wiggling your finger at his chest. His tie is angrily knotted up, instead of worn normally. He looks at it and shrugs.  
“I can’t tie ties. Our boss did it for me during training, but now I’m on my own. I guess you didn’t notice yesterday, you were too . . . gross.”  
“Are you serious?” You may have looked like a human mistake yesterday, but there’s a difference between letting yourself go and not knowing how to put yourself together in the first place. “Let me do it for you, then.”  
Reaching for him earns you a hard smack. As you rub the back of your hand, he wrangles the tie off of himself and hands it to you.   
“I’m not letting you do anything that has the potential to strangle me,” he explains, and that’s logic you can’t fight with. You set it right, then give it to him to fasten around his neck.   
“Now that that’s sorted,” he claps his hands together, “let’s go! We’ve got afterlives to ruin.”  
“Sure, sure.” You take the lead down the hallway and he skips behind you, until you make it to the parking lot and see the car. Five long, silver gouges run the length of the vehicle, and the hood is engraved with the words ‘FUCK YOU’.   
“Smithers! You keyed the fucking hummer!”  
“Oh. Yeah, I did. Forgot about that.”  
Grumbling, you survey the damage done, running your hands over the gashes that disrupt the sleek black exterior. The lines run deep. “Did you do this with your claws?”  
“Yeah.”  
“jesus. It’s almost impressive.” You pick at a gash and decide your boss likely won’t pay to get it repaired. Smithers hops into the passenger seat, and you decide there’s nothing else to do but head to work.   
You stop for coffee at the same place as before, and Smithers leaps out and heads inside before you can call him back. He returns with two cups in his hands and his knife-sharp smile plastered on his face. He clambers in, hands you your cup, and wiggles in his seat.   
You don’t take a sip until you’ve pulled out of the parking lot. Once you do, it’s hard to resist the urge to spit your mouthful out onto the dashboard. Pulling to the side of the road, you pop your lid off, discovering whipped cream and chocolate drizzle where there should be the dependable well of black coffee. “What is this?”  
“White hot chocolate, extra sugar, with double topping!” Smithers cackles.  
“You’re a heathen!”  
He keeps laughing, mouth open like a baby bird’s. “There’s no time to get a new one, now! Come on, let’s go to work!”  
Unless the bullet did something to your brain, you’d swear having been killed just yesterday should have made the kid nicer to you. Instead, he’s layering on the agitation. You dump your beverage out on the side of the road, resume driving, and swear to god you’re going to find a way to punish this thumb tack of a human being. You’re going to do something big.   
You just need to find out what he cares about, first.   
Today, when deciding the fates of spirits, you keep a close watch on your partner, both to ensure he doesn’t try anything and to figure out what makes him tick. It’s like studying a wild animal, discovering the components that make it react and trying to understand the logic behind it. By the end of the day, you’d say he reacts the worst to people with more sins on them, as opposed to people with potent sin markers. Specific sins, too, he has no tolerance for—murder, but also any kind of animal abuse. On the other hand, it seems you can do anything to another human but finish them off and he’ll act natural.   
It makes no sense, but you suppose you’d understand more if you were inside his head. You don’t want to even imagine digging into that psyche, tilling up all sorts of worms in that dirt. Instead, you pull him back by the collar if he’s getting too close to any humans, and you disregard his say in most of the decisions. He huffs, but a lot of the vitriol has gotten out of him through the morning’s antics already. He’s mostly calm for the rest of the day.   
It’s around two in the afternoon when he grumbles from the backseat, where you’ve stuck him for general backtalk, “When’s lunch?”  
“Um. Now?” To be honest, you have a bad habit of skipping meals that’s carried over from your living days. You didn’t learn that your new form needed to eat until a few days into your afterlife. You’ve only ever eaten to live, never lived to eat, and since you’re technically dead now, you thought that chore was done with.   
Thinking back, you realize that you must have made Smithers go without eating, yesterday, unless he snuck out of the hummer to grab a bite to eat. It almost makes you feel bad. Another thing about him that you don’t get is the way he disregards everything you say one moment, then behaves like a trained dog the next. You disregard your thoughts and look around for lunch options.  
“What do you want to eat?”  
“Candy.”  
“What?—No, we’re going for real food. An actual meal, with nutrients.”  
“Pizza?”  
“. . . Good enough.”  
Luckily, there’s a pizza joint nearby. It turns out to be a cramped little place, but the atmosphere is nice, with checkered floors and red booth seats and servers in cream-and-crimson shirts. It takes no time to get seated, and a young server smiles kindly and hands the two of you laminated menus. You order black coffee, and meat lover’s pizza. Smithers gets a milkshake and Hawaiian, because he’s atrocious.   
You eat in silence. What is there to talk about, after all? You chew and stare straight forward, but Smithers keeps looking past you, and you notice that his attention is on the waiter. You watch Smithers track him as he heads to other tables, and perk up like a badly-trained dog when he comes over to ask how the food is.   
“Perfect!” Smithers answers, and the server—his nametag says Mark—smiles. The two men share the same high energy, you realize, except that that Mark is completely benign. It’s the difference between a domesticated dog and a gray wolf. There are a lot of directions that a personality trait can lean.   
Mark heads off again, and still Smithers watches. He’s not even subtle about it, craning his neck to get a better view as other patrons block the way. “Is there something bothering you?” you ask, and the kid snaps back into position in his seat.  
“What do you mean?”  
“You’re watching that boy like you plan to eat him next.” You take a bite of pizza. “Do you need something from him?”  
“Oh! Oh, no, I was just—I was just, I don’t know.” He takes a long sip from his shake. It takes you a few moments to understand why his cheeks are turning so red, but eventually it hits you.  
You turn around, putting your arm over the back of the booth as you scope the place out for Mark. There he is, just returning from the kitchen with a tray full of food. You pay more attention to him now, noting the warm brown shade of his skin, the tattoo of a mountain range on his exposed forearm, and the way his eyes shine through his glasses lenses. He’s got a sturdy frame, and dimples. You turn back around.  
“I guess he’s cute,” you say, and Smithers chokes on his shake. You continue, “Not a fan of the tattoo, though. When I was alive, I worked with people who had ink up and down their arms. To me, you go all-out like that, or do nothing. A single piece doesn’t begin to fulfil the potential of what your body can show off.”  
“jesus christ.”  
“What?”  
Smithers hides his face in his hands, and half-whispers, “Just stop talking. Okay? It’s nothing, just stop talking.”  
“I guess you’re right, it doesn’t matter—we aren’t supposed to form relationships with humans, right? Though, considering that our entire job is a joke, I guess you might as well go for it. What kind of afterlife is it , if you can’t date?”  
“Oh my god—wait.” He peeks out at you from a gap in his fingers. “What are you talking about? Our job isn’t a joke.”  
Oh. You probably shouldn’t have said that. Honestly, you’re still processing that information yourself, and what it means for you. You’re in a literal dead-end job, but that’s nothing new. The trapped feeling you have now is the same as what you felt while living. The truth isn’t a shock, but rather a burner turned up to slightly higher heat. It hurts, sure, but you’re used to it.   
You fumble for something to say. “I just mean, it seems like we barely make a difference. Anybody could do what we do.” You lean back in your seat, folding your arms over your chest, adding, “I bet we could stop working and other agents would cover our slack easily. Nobody noticed when we took that sick day, right?”  
“Guess so. I don’t know, I’m just happy to be here.”   
You can’t help but snort. Instantly, he has his shoulders up, defensive. You take a bite of your pizza crust and point the rest of the rind at him. “I can’t imagine you happy, is all.”  
“What are you talking about?” He bares his teeth, beaming, turning it into a joke, now. “Haven’t you noticed my sun-shiny personality?”  
“’Happy’ is different than what you are. It sounds too innocent. You only like being alive—or conscious, at least—because it lets you cause chaos.”  
He tilts his head. “Maybe. Or maybe I have other plans. You don’t know me just because we work together, you know.”  
“So, outside of the job, you have the most fulfilling hobbies? What are they? Gardening? Yoga? Stamp-collecting?”  
“None of your beeswax.” He wipes a fallen glob of tomato sauce off of his plate with his finger, then sucks it off. He admires the cleaned digit. You wait for him to say anything more, but that’s where the conversation ends. What a way for it to go—just when he’s becoming bearable, he sheathes his claws back out. There’s no way to respond except with silence.   
You both go back to eating, and split the bill once done. Smithers leaves a big tip but says nothing to Mark before heading out the door. He only gives a long, last glance, then returns to the hummer.


	5. Chapter 5

The rest of the day is as uneventful as a job dealing with the dead can be. Smithers argues with you over some decisions (“It’s a crimson mark, but it’s the only one he has, practically! He only made a mistake. Can’t you understand a mistake?”) but no fatal injuries are delivered, so that’s good. At the end of the day, the only damages are scratches he’s left along your arms, and bruises he has where you’ve shoved him into a wall. Not bad, considering the track record.   
“See ya, partner,” Smithers says before entering his apartment at the end of the day. You return the farewell with a half-hearted wave. Is he warming up to you? Or are you only hoping?  
You shake thoughts from him from your head, trying your best to adhere to the no-Smithers-after-work rule. You enter your place and find the same nothingness waiting for you that you left behind in the morning. It makes something in your chest suck in, like clinging mud. Well, screw that feeling. Pushing your hand through your hair, you reason that if Smithers can find contentment with this life, you can do the same.   
You pace once around your apartment. The sun is setting so you flick the lights on, in the kitchen as well as the living room. You turn on the TV (the news features a breaking story: something bad is happening. Who would have guessed.) but it’s still quiet. You play the radio from your phone. You pace around again, and light a cigarette. Finish it in a minute’s worth of drags, light a new one with the burning end. You pace again. You open the windows.   
Fuck this. You need a drink.   
You leave the apartment to head to the liquor store, but bump into a woman who’s trying to get into the apartment across from yours. She’s attempting to balance grocery bags on a raised knee, wobbling on the other leg as she uses her free hand to rifle through her purse. “Need help?” you ask, and with a grateful sigh she lets you take her load.   
“Thank you so much,” she says, swiping dirty-blonde hair out of her face and diving back into her purse. She finds her keys and opens her door, and through it, you see an apartment filled with planted pots and light colours. You hand her the bags and she smiles. “Thanks again. You’re new here, right? Moved in a bit over a week ago?”  
“Yeah. Moved here for work.”  
“How nice! What do you do?”  
“Um.” You have not been saying the right things today. You put your hands in your pockets, leaning back, trying to think. “It’s really boring. Data collection, mostly.”  
She looks at your suit. “Must be fancy data, with a uniform like that.” You don’t know what to say. She rearranges her cluster of bags and heads through her door. “Well, I’ll see you around!”  
“Sure, sure.” You step back, watching her shut the door behind her, loitering for a few moments after she’s gone. What was that? Successful, normal human interaction? A good deed, even? Cyrus, who are you trying to impress? For a moment, you imagine leaning into this. Making real friends, constructing a normal life. You’d have to move on from it eventually, as you won’t age from now on and people will get suspicious, but isn’t everything temporary? You won’t have to deal with it for decades, anyway. You could be happy for a while.   
But you’ve never known how to reach for these things. Maybe you don’t have the power to. You’re alone for now, and there’s a desperation clawing at the back of your skull. You want so badly to drown it out.   
In the end, there’s nothing to do but head over to the liquor store, to continue with your normal plans. You don’t run into your neighbour again. Every night that you lose your consciousness to alcohol, you awake with a cloudiness that feels almost like a reset. Who knows? Maybe, with enough attempts, you’ll open your eyes one day to find that things are different. Maybe you’ll finally be free. 

 

Alcohol is good at doing bad things. It’s a trait you have in common with it. Your family has a history with drinking, either keeping far away from it or tumbling no-holds-barred into addiction like they’re jumping from an unmanned plane. You rarely drank in your lifetime, especially since your jobs required your mind to stay sharp. Now, though, your body treats drunkenness like it’s a wound: it doesn’t prevent the symptoms—and certainly not the pain—but where you’d normally be in alcoholic free-fall, it keeps you afloat. You can drink yourself into oblivion one night and come back to the light the next morning, with everything you’d left rushing back in. You’re hungover, but it’s nothing a shower and a coffee can’t dull. Then, work provides enough distraction to get through the rest of it. Basically, alcohol transports you through your nights. It lets you time-travel.   
You’re able to function this way for over week. You fall into a pattern of sorts, bearing work and bearing time off and juxtaposing the two enough that you’re never too strung out from either. It works the way a duct-taped boat works. You try not to think about sinking.  
Work, on its own, isn’t . . . completely awful. Interactions with Smithers range from annoying-yet-endearing to the social equivalent of eating a tube of Chap Stick, but it’s become tolerable. It helps that there’s an unspoken lunchbreak truce in effect. But then you head home, to embrace your black cloak of drunkenness, and you’re grateful for it and scared that you’re grateful.   
You’re a dead man walking. You should accept it and move on, but you can’t stop thinking about it. Your inability to accept your fate is the only change you’ve faced since dying.   
Then something happens that makes you shift your focus.   
It’s a Wednesday morning when you, miraculously, don’t awake to Smithers pounding on your door. Taking full advantage of this, you spend extra time cleaning yourself up. You grab your least-wrinkled shirt and brush your hair back, stare you reflection down long enough to intimidate your self-loathing, and then head to the kitchen.   
You recently bought the worst brand of instant coffee you could find, and you make a cup of it every morning. The beverage war with Smithers has escalated with each passing day, and the atrocity you require of your coffees has surpassed what the cafe is willing to make for you. Instead of buying drinks before work, you’ve taken to making this liquid-charcoal-tasting concoction to hand to Smithers each morning. In turn, he’s been giving you homemade hot chocolates, which are sludges of equal parts water, sugar, and cocoa powder. Yesterday, he bypassed his recipe altogether to hand you a mug of slightly-warmed chocolate syrup. Neither of you drink these toxins, and the caffeine hit is dearly missed. However, the drive to one-up the other is enough of a motivation to awake as the drinks used to be.   
This morning, you smoke a quick cigarette and dump the ashes into Smithers’ mug. A few quick stirs and it’s ready; you head to his apartment. Standing in front of the door, you knock politely—because you’re mean, but not a heathen, unlike some people.   
There’s no response. You’re about to knock again when you hear a series of thumps, a crash of furniture falling, and muffled obscenities. “Smithers?” you call.  
“One—ow—second!” There’s more silence and some shuffling, before the door opens. It’s only a sliver ajar, but you can see that there’s no light inside—natural or otherwise. The blinds must all be drawn. Smithers peeks out at you, grimaces, and half-retreats.   
“Morning,” You say. You step forward but he pulls the door even more closed.   
“Don’t come near,” he says. “Just, ugh, just gimme a sec.”  
More shuffling. He leaves the apartment while still shrugging on his jacket, and although he’s always worn his shirt untucked, today it’s also buttoned wrong and missing his tie. His hair looks like a road-killed crow was plopped on his head. He sniffles, rubs his eye with a knuckle, and shuts his door harshly behind him. “Let’s go,” he mumbles. Not once has he looked you in the eye.   
On the way across the parking lot, you give him his coffee. He stares at it, blinks once, and takes a gulp. Grimacing, he wipes his mouth with his sleeve and goes in for another swig.   
“Kid, what the fuck are you doing?” you shout.   
He swallows and groans through his teeth. “I’m not your kid, and I need the caffeine. Leave me alone.” One more mouthful is all he can take, and the throws the cup away. It shatters in the middle of the street, coffee sludge exploding in all directions.   
“That was my cup,” you say. He ignores you, spitting in the gutter and pushing a hand through his hair. He lumbers to the hummer. Instead of climbing in shotgun, he falls into the backseat.   
“What’s eating you?” You get in driver’s side and furrow your brow at him through the rear-view mirror. He stares at the ceiling.  
“I’m just going to chill back here for a while, okay? I won’t cause trouble.”  
“That doesn’t answer my question. You look like you’ve been crying.”  
He sniffs once but says nothing. You sigh and shift into drive, deciding to let him pout—or whatever it is he’s doing. It’s not like you care, or anything.  
Everything’s good for the rest of the morning, work-wise. Smithers sleeps in the back the whole time, and before you know it, it’s time for lunch. You drive over to the cute-waiter pizza place, not because you want to cheer Smithers up, but because you want to see how deeply his bad mood dwells.   
Shaking his shoulder to rouse him (he jolts awake and slaps your hand away), you lead Smithers into the restaurant. Mark works most lunch shifts, and today’s no different. He spots you two as you slide into your usual spot, and comes over to ask, “The usuals?”  
“Yes, please,” you say. This has been the preferred lunch spot for you and Smithers, because the pizza is actually amazing. Stretchy cheese, crunchy crust, and not too much sauce. You’re in love with the food more than Smithers is in love with Mark. Today, however, your partner shuffles into the side of his seat, pressing into the wall like he’s trying to phase through it, keeping his food untouched and Mark un-ogled. You’re not going to let food this good go to waste, so you take it from him and pluck the pineapples off to eat it. You’re halfway through his meal when you can’t take the silence.   
“You’re staring at the table like it just killed your dog,” you say. “Seriously. What’s going on?”  
“’S nothing.”  
“Smithers.” You lean towards him, and he stares at you warily. “You haven’t done one malicious thing all day. Something’s definitely wrong.”  
He pushes his hand up through his hair again. He’s done that a lot today, in this weird way of his, which involves a lot of pushing his palm against his forehead. He pulls at his feather-fur locks and sighs.   
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbles, “it’s just. Hard. Doing this.”  
You nod. “I know, but they won’t let us transfer partners. I’ve tried.”  
“That’s not what I meant. I—wait.” He sits up. “You tried to transfer me?”  
You take a bite of crust. “Yeah. Haven’t you?”  
“No.”  
You frown. “I thought you hated me.”  
“I do!” He cackles, “I hate you! So much! But you can handle it, because you’re just as wicked as I am—at least, I thought you were. I didn’t peg you to give up on this partnership so easily.”  
Scientists could spend decades studying the genetics that make Smithers’ face so very punch-able. He beams at you and you retort, “This is coming from the guy who was crying this morning?”  
“I wasn’t crying!”  
“Your eye was clearly puffy. And you were sniffling.”  
“I was tired, is all. I was up all night looking through—“ He swallows mid-sentence. You’ve caught him in something, and you clasp your hands together, leaning further over the table.   
“Looking through what?”  
“Nothing. Nothing.”  
You’re not a smiler, but your smirk conveys enough. “Is this the hobby you’ve been so reluctant on sharing?”  
He glowers. “Maybe. But it’s not important.”  
“If it moved you to tears, it is.”  
“Oh, why do you care?” His volume shoots to a shout, and a few heads turn.   
“Smithers, you’re drawing attention,” you caution. He scowls at you and pushes up from the table.   
“You and all of your prying, asking questions as if I matter to you. You haven’t gone soft, have you? I know you haven’t—you’re just looking for something to lord over me, because you can’t beat me physically. Well, I’m not telling you anything.”  
Oh god. Your relationship has officially reached the fighting-in-a-public-place tier. You grit your teeth and hope he doesn’t decide to make it physical.   
“I don’t need anybody prying into my shit.” he says. “Especially not a burnt-out alcoholic nobody like you.”  
He sweeps all of the contents of your table to the floor, then, satisfied with the scene he’s created, storms out. Once he’s gone, you exhale and look around. Every patron and employee is either looking right at you, or very intentionally away. You spot Mark’s shocked face among the crowd, and hold up a finger to beckon him over.  
“Check, please.”


	6. Chapter 6

Back in the parking lot, you find the hummer empty. Smithers must have gotten so heated, he walked right on home, and you’re glad for it. It guarantees more easy work. Your shift passes quickly; you handle mostly old people who are ready to leave when you come for them, and you wish you could feel their solace with the afterlife. You head home, and it’s only then that Smithers’ words attract attention.  
You didn’t care about his insults he said them, but now that you’ve been able to ruminate, his words hang off of you like improperly-shed skin. You don’t like being called an alcoholic. It might even be true, but you didn’t realize he knew what you were up to. You guess you’re not sly about it in any way, but still, his silence had been a buffer. If nobody mentioned it, maybe it was less real, and you were safe. Consequence-free. Now, he’s called you out.   
Who’s he to judge you, though? He has his own issues, and you don’t need to take criticisms from a gremlin like him. Yes. You are completely faultless, because Smithers is more horrible than you. This makes complete sense.   
You pick up more liquor on the way home. Halfway through your apartment door, you’ve already uncapped your whiskey, taking the first drink that always flashes heat through you as you swallow. When you were first tumbling into the muck of your alcohol-use, it burned like a personal hell down your esophagus, but you welcomed the hurt. It’s not painful anymore. You exhale, feeling your mouth become a bitter cavern, and you are thankful for it.   
Your peace ends too soon. You’ve downed only a fraction of the bottle when there’s a familiar rapping at your door.   
You swing open the door with one hand and hold your bottle by the neck with the other. Smithers opposes you, stance abrasive, smile saccharine.   
“The fuck do you want?” you ask. “I know you’re not here to apologize.”  
He rocks back on his heels. “Am I not allowed to visit my neighbour, my work partner, my fellow sufferer-of-purgatory? All I want is a little company.”  
A bark launches from your throat, an expression of incredulity. You can’t help it; the thought of Smithers wanting your company is textbook fantasy. But, shit, you must be a little drunk by now, because you step back to let him in. You want to know what game he’s playing.   
He waltzes inside, rocking back on his heels as he surveys the place. You’re pretty sure your existence wouldn’t pass the Turing test—your place is basic, as in simple and as in low-life. It must reek of cigarette smoke. Smithers wanders to the window, looking out at the view of blank space, and nods.   
“Seriously, now,” you say. “What’s eating you?”  
Smithers turns, walking back to you. You watch for a crack in his poker face, but it’s hard when he won’t give up that horror-movie grin. “I want something,” he says.  
“Everybody does. What do you have in mind?”  
He nods towards the whiskey. “I want some of that.”  
You blink. “You can’t be serious.”  
“It’s a simple request!”   
“A request for a drink hookup? Why not get it yourself?”  
He shoves his hands in his pockets. Defensive. His gaze sweeps the ground in front of him and you realize the problem.   
“How old are you?”  
“It doesn’t matter. I’m dead, and that means I’m like, infinity-aged.”   
You snicker “You’re not legal drinking age. That’s the problem. Poor kid can’t buy booze.”  
“Are you sharing or not?” He scowls and reaches for the whiskey, stretching and clenching his fingers in a very childlike way. You hold it away from him.   
“No way. You can’t yell at me in public, leave, and come back hours later asking for handouts. That’s not how human interaction works.”  
“Good thing we’re not human.”  
“We’re close enough.” You take a drink, glaring him down as you do. Wiping your mouth with you sleeve, you hold the bottle out of reach again and ask, “Why do you even want any? You’re not the drinking type.”  
“You don’t know what I am,” he retorts. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as an inebriated slob, but here we are.”  
You’re about to shoot back a barbed reply, but you bite your tongue. This kid is young, you remind yourself. And he doesn’t know that, without much effort, he could find a stranger who’d buy him alcohol as long as they got a cut. You cross your arms over your chest. “Fine. Sit down.”  
“Really, I can take a bottle and leave—“  
“You’re drinking here or not at all. If you drink, and you’re fine, I’ll let you take the bottle. Sit down.”  
The two of you end up on the couch, at opposite ends. Smithers is tense like a positioned doll, and you draw out the wait for him, taking a big, slow drink from the bottle while he watches. Alcohol slides over your tongue, slicks down your throat, and pools sweetly in your stomach. Smithers is tapping the couch seat with fast fingers. You exhale, grin, and pass the bottle to him.   
He grabs it with minimal hesitation, holding it two-handed around the middle. He has no problem drinking from the same bottle as you. You relax into your seat, ready for the show.   
He inhales and swigs, tilting his head back and bottle up, and you wince before the consequences even show. The next moment, it all erupts, and he’s hacking, coughing, spilling whiskey over himself, leaning over, sputtering towards the floor. You, of course, are laughing so hard you’re coming apart. Smithers wheezes, looks up, and whines angrily, “You knew that was going to happen?”  
“Of course! There was no way you knew what you were doing.”  
“It feels like Hell is inside of my throat!”   
“Consider it a lesson.”  
He hacks a bit more, then chucks the bottle at you—only your quick reflexes prevent disaster. He frowns, clenching his jaw, ensconcing himself in the corner of the couch.   
“Oh, come on. You’re not upset, are you?”  
“No,” he says, clearly upset. You sigh.  
“Why don’t you tell me what this is about?”  
“It’s nothing!”  
“Something’s driving you to drinking. Is it the same thing you were moping about this morning?”  
“No.” He scratches his neck viciously. When he removes his hand, the skin there is pink. “. . . I wanted to try it. It works for you, and I thought it would help me, too.”  
You’re struck back by this. “I wouldn’t say it helps me any,” you correct, then smirk. “I’m flattered you think of me as a role model, though.”  
“Shut up—it’s only because you’re the only other Agent I know. And you’re better at human things, even if you’re a shitlord in every other way. I thought the drinking had something to do with it.”  
You cock an eyebrow. “Why do you care about ‘human things’? You’re not interested in being good at your job, are you?”  
“Fuck, no. But there are—other things.”  
You nod. “Other things, like what had you upset earlier?” You’re going to circle back to this until you get some sort of answer, damn it. “You were acting like a mess, and that’s by my standards, so you’re torn up about something.”  
Smithers sits across from you, a dressed-up disaster wearing a petulant look. He refuses to budge  
“Give me a second,” you say, and shove to your feet.   
Your movement to the kitchen is alcohol-slicked, but not too badly. You pour Smithers a cup of coke and bring it to him, trickling in a few drops of whiskey after he’s holding it, in a show of placation. “A peace offering,” you explain. Then you sit on the opposite end of the couch, sinking down and resting your arms over the sides. You have to tilt your bottle pretty far to take another drink—the bottle’s getting light, and consequences seem less heavy. With each blink, you feel your brain take a second to buffer. Smithers watches you for a while, then takes a cautious sip of his drink. He licks his lips but doesn’t say anything.  
You know that there are depths to your partner you’ve yet to find. He’s a mural painted over in white, but hints of shadows still lurk beneath that layer, and you think you’re finding the outline of a shape right now. It’s just too much to decipher. He’s not a thorn in your side, he’s a longsword through your chest; and he’s a shy kid, and someone you have to educate; he’s a human infection; he’s naive. You know there’s sadness, at the heart of it all. It’s like that with everyone.   
You want to excavate something—within you, or within him, or entrenched in both of your hearts. You inhale, pause, and start to speak.   
“My death was not quick or painless. I’d been working as a bodyguard, and I was used to violence on the job, but I could usually see it coming. That time—the last time, I mean—I was hit over the head from behind, without warning. I fell to the ground, head cracking on concrete, and this stranger kept driving a crowbar into my skull. Swinging down on me until I couldn’t see past my own blood. It hurt until it didn’t, and as my senses tuned out, I realized two things. The first was that I was dying. The second was that I was relieved.   
“Not happy about it, mind you. There’s a difference. I wasn’t grateful, or excited to die. But I had this thought, my last thought, that it was good this was happening. That it was a win-win situation for me and the world. I’m not—I wasn’t religious. I thought dying meant something, that it really was the end. But with that in mind, death still seemed like the best option. I’d stopped enjoying my life ages ago. My character arc was ingrown, and without realizing it, I’d spent the past few decades waiting passively to die. That realization was the last thing I thought as a living, breathing person.   
“So I don’t trust what HR says. This is labelled as a plea deal, but I don’t think that’s true. I think Hell knows exactly what it’s doing to me. I wanted to be dead, so now I’m being punished with living, forever.”  
Turns out, you’re a brooding drunk. You didn’t even know until now, because you’ve only been plastered in privacy, but the words slosh out and it feels like cleaning pus from a wound. Smithers stares at his drink, untouched since the first sip, and silences drapes over the conversation. When he speaks next, it’s while staring straight forward, and with an uncharacteristic monotone.   
“Thank you for the crash course in your personal angst,” he says, “but I don’t fucking care. And I know what you’re trying to do. You think you’ll open up, and it’ll make me spill my sob story, too. I’m not going to let you play therapist for me, Cyrus.”  
He stands, sets his glass gently on the coffee table, and walks to the door. With a hand on the doorknob, he turns back to you. “Don’t bother coming to my door tomorrow. I’m taking a sick day.”  
The door shuts behind him. Nothing moves for a while afterwards: you don’t get up, don’t drink, don’t tap the ashes off of your burning cigarette. All you do is breathe, in and out, trying to fight back the feeling that’s collapsing inside of you.  
You and Smithers are stuck together for eternity, joined at the metaphorical hip by your jobs. However, there’s a difference between being stuck together and being close.   
You finish your bottle and set it on the table, next to Smithers’ cup. You have never been so alone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> posting from phone, edited while tired, let’s hope this chapters still good. how’s are the boys? up to their same old playful antics it seems, silly wicked boys!!

You knock on Smithers’ door the next morning. No response. You call out through the barrier, telling him he can take as many personal days as he needs, just to come get you when he feels like working again. You end up working alone for a full week. 

The next Monday, you wake up early in the morning. You’d passed out in bed, for once, albeit still in day clothes, and you’re about to pull the covers around you and go back to sleep when something catches your eye. A blink of light flashes amidst the lake-blue semi-darkness of your room. A few seconds go by, and it flashes and disappears again, in the same place. You squint, your tired brain trying to make sense of what you’re seeing. 

Demon eyes can see nocturnally, but in this half-light half-dark state, your vision’s not great. You see one more blink, then nothing, but you swear you can make out the outline of a figure in your room. A person, maybe. You push yourself to a half-sitting position and the shape moves back, confirming its existence. You nod to yourself. You’re not scared. You don’t think you have a reason to be. 

“Hello?” You attempt speech but it comes out growling, so you clear your throat and try again. “Smithers, is that you?”

No response from the form. It’s not like Smithers to be quiet, but who else would it be? You try again. 

“Kid?”

“I’m not your kid.” The knee-jerk response comes as bluntly as a bite from molars. You nod again. 

“What’s going on?” You ask. “You okay?”

He says nothing.

“Smithers. Talk to me.”

He takes a step forward. So orderly, so uncharacteristically still. You frown. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I need to test something.” 

“Test what?”

Another long step forward, followed by pulling his feet together to stand like there are magnets in his soles. He’s getting closer to the bed, moving like a child playing that old game—“What Time is it, Mr. Wolf”. And again he’s so still. Like he’s afraid of being eaten. 

“Smithers,” you warn. “What are you doing in my room?”

“I need you to do something for me. Just one thing.”

His arm raises. Light catches the object that had been blinking in his hand—it’s one of your kitchen knives. You tense.

“Just. Dont. Move,” Smithers says. And he lunges for you. 

You try to fend him off, but you’re half-asleep and underneath him, and he’s got the knife. He knows what he’s doing, too—goes straight for your jugular. He slashes. The flesh of your neck opens up like a breaking dam, and as your body gives up and leans back into bed, you’re vaguely aware that he’s still stabbing you. Not at the neck, but all up and down your body, jabbing with mad abandon. You can only watch him desecrate your corpse like it’s a time-sensitive contest. In the moment, you can’t even be mad. Only confused. 

Your insides spill out onto your bed, and your soul lets go. It’s not a pleasant death, but you’ve had worse.

\---

Your eyes open like a pair of Venus fly traps. You stretch, feel the discomfort of your clothes and sheets around you, and look down to see what your situation is. You haven’t moved since you died, but your covers have been pulled up to your chin, tucking you in like a small child. Kicking the duvet off reveals the massacre aftermath underneath. Even having expected it, you can’t help but start. 

Everything is stained brown with dried blood, and made crunchy from the fluid having saturated it and dried. Sheets are stuck in peaks and valleys. Your body is wound-free, but your clothes have been shredded by the knife’s slashing. It must have taken you days to regenerate after getting cut up so badly. 

Tearing yourself out of bed, you head to the ensuite bathroom and rip off your clothes, getting into the shower. Boiling claws of water tear the mess from your skin, and you recount the events of your most recent demise. The confusion, the weird behaviour from Smithers—you want to understand it, but more than anything else, you want revenge. The anger that evaded you before floods your system, and your fists itch with the need to punch something. Smithers has killed you twice, now. You’re not letting him get away with this. 

You dry off and dress in a fresh suit, wanting to look as powerful as you feel when you make your partner pay. If you need to tear up every inch of this city to find him, that’s what you’ll do. It’s not until you leave the bedroom that you learn so much work isn’t necessary

You sigh. Only Smithers could commit a murder then think it wise to squat in the victim’s home—especially knowing that their death sentence is temporary. Dirty dishes lie at random points around your living room, crumbs are scattered over the floor, and the blinds are closed. None of the lights are on, but the television is, and the blank screen sweeps a sickly light across the room. Your couch has been dragged (scraping the hardwood, you notice) to face the screen head-on, and curled up asleep in the middle of it is the prince of garbage himself. 

You don’t yell. You don’t say anything. You just stride over, yank him up, and backhand him with all of the strength you have. 

“Ah!”

“Motherfucker!” You throw him to the floor. He scrambles to the wall but you pull him back, yanking the untied tie from around his shoulders and wrapping it around his neck. god, you want so badly to strangle the life out of him, wait for it to refill, and let the process repeat. He whines like a puppy and you pull tighter. 

“What the fuck did you think you’d accomplish, killing me? Huh? You think it was fun? Did you *enjoy* yourself, you catabolic pest?”

He shakes his head like he’s trying to give himself a concussion. “Test—“ is all he can speak out past your chokehold. “Test!”

You wish you could be like him, for a moment. You want to feel volatility in your bone marrow, want to exact revenge without caring. But, of course, you’re actually a decent human being, and as he struggles in your grip, it makes your chest twinge. You can’t kill Smithers. Not even if it’s temporary. 

You sigh. It takes long wait, but you let him go.

Smithers rips the tie out of your grasp and throws it down. Hands on his knees, he gasps towards the ground before saying, “You shitlord! “Didn’t I tell you, I was trying to test something? Sheesh, and people say I’m hot-tempered.”

“You. *Killed*. Me.” 

“Yeah, yeah, but I had to. I had a theory.” He stretches back to his full height. You clench your fists, in case he tries anything. Besides, you decided not to kill him, but you’re considering still giving him a walloping to remember. It would serve him right, too.

“You’re right about our jobs not mattering,” Smithers explains. “I started wondering about it when I was taking all those days off—wouldn’t Hell notice? It got me thinking about if they kept track of us at all. So I killed you, yeah, but only to keep you stagnant for a few days. And look at us now. We haven’t worked as a pair for almost two weeks, and neither of us has done our job since Monday, but they haven’t called. No signs of them noticing at all.”

Your fists loosen. “That’s what you murdered me for?”

“‘Murder’ is a strong word, Cyrus. I killed you, sure, but murder?”

“I could have told you that our jobs are jokes. They’re to keep us out of everyone’s hair.”

He tilts his head. “Would you really have told me, though? If I’d asked?”

He makes a good point. You totally wouldn’t have, out of spite. “Yes I would,” you say. He shakes his head. 

“I figured it out on my own, though—“

“With the help of my corpse.”

“—and I’ve come to a conclusion.” He clasps his hands, rocking from foot to foot. “I am going to quit.”

“Bullshit.”

“Why not? Do I have anything worthwhile to stay behind for?” He spreads his arms, and you look around your apartment. His must be the same, as dark and formal as a casket, so domestic and lonely and boring. He continues, “I have an eternity to waste, and I want to have fun squandering it. Don’t you?”

“You think being tortured in Hell is better than the real world?”

He cackles. “Hell no! —See what I did there? Anyway, I’m staying above ground. I’m just not going to be an Agent anymore.”

“That’s not an option,” you stutter. 

“It is if I try it. All I need to do is outrun them, and I’m quick,“ he skips around the room, spinning around you, hiding behind your back, “I’m nimble, I’m stealthy. And it’s not like I’ve acted like a goody-goody until now. This is just another bullet point on my list of Sins. No biggie.”

“You’re going to desert Hell.”

“That’s the plan, you horrible man!”

“Fine. I’d get mad if my new partner turns out to be worse than you, but you and I both know that’s not possible.”

“Oh, no, no, no.” Smithers spins you around to face him. “You’re not getting a new partner. You see, there’s a reason why I’ve been hanging out here, waiting for you. One, I needed to make sure you still weren’t working. But, two, I know I can’t do this alone.”

You fold your arms across your chest. “Smithers.”

“Yes?”

“If you’re suggesting that I come with you—I reinstate, come with you on your run from literal demons—there’s more wrong with you than I ever thought.”

He groans. “You’re not even considering it!”

“I am,” you retort. “I am considering how terrible of an idea your sadistic plan is, and it’s honestly going to give me nightmares. I’m not going with you.”

“I need you, Cyrus. You’re an asshole, but you have the power to make people do things for you, without threatening to stab them. And you have brains,” he waves his hands, fingers spread, on both sides of his head, then clenches them into fists. “And a driver’s license. I don’t have any of those things. So I need you, and you may not need me, but you do need to escape just as badly as I do.”

“I really don’t.”

“So you’re fine with your eternity looking like this?”

You shrug. Pouting, Smithers grabs your arm and pulls you in the direction of the kitchen. You let him move you, and you end up in front of the pantry. Smithers swings the door open, and in the darkness, your pile of empty whiskey bottles catches a teaspoon’s worth of television glow. It shines like a dragon’s hoard. 

“Is this all your second chance is going to amount to?” 

You pull your arm away from him. “Shut up.”

“I have a point, though. You need to admit it. Can you tell me, honestly, that you haven’t thought about what else you could be doing on Earth? What happiness you might carve out for yourself if only you were free?”

Truly, you haven’t. It’s a new concept, an idea with barbs, and you inhale slowly. Damn it, the kid is wriggling into your brain. He might be right. 

“Do you even have a plan?” you ask. “A route to follow? An end goal in mind?”

He nods. “The way I see it, we book it out of here together and get them off our trail. You take me where I need to be, and from there you can have the hummer and whatever supplies you want, and go do fuck-all for what I care. But we’ll be free.”

“Trapped in a vehicle, together, driving for hours on end,” you clarify. “Doesn’t sound free to me. We’re more likely to kill each other before our bosses get ahold of us. It’s a bad mix.”

Smithers growls. “You don’t get it!” He races off, grabs his tie from the ground by the couch, and returns, handing it to you. “Yes, we fight. Yes, we hate each other. So much. But when you’re with me, I keep you from thinking about your sorry state, don’t I? I distract you. And I help you, in that way, and you help me.” 

You stare at the tie, starting to get what he means. You adjust the ends and knot them into a correct loop, and when you’re done, he takes it and puts it on. “See? We don’t play nice, but we do work. We’d be able to do this.”

It’s a solid case—as solid as something like this can be. Smithers licks his lips, leaning his weight on his back foot, giving you space to think. You blink, and your eyes stay closed for a few moments. 

“It’s late,” you say. 

“Technically, it’s early. Three in the morning, or so.”

“Do we go now?”

“No time like the present.”

Are you really doing this? The time to back out is quickly passing. “We have to pack,” you say. 

“Then let’s pack.”

“Only the essentials, though—no more than we can carry. Meet out front in . . . half an hour?”

He nods. And you’re off, just like that. Smithers sprints to his apartment and you stand alone in the kitchen, with only the television keeping you company. It stares like a blind eye across the room. 

This is a bad idea. A really bad idea, you know it is. Your fists itch, but not in the way they did earlier, not with the urge to punch. You want to claw your way out of this situation. 

However, your current life has you just as trapped. With an uncertain future, you’d at least be free, even if that freedom is malicious. You might even feel alive again. 

You rub your temples. Then you head to your room, ready to pack.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another phone chapter, this one edited less than the last one—you can trust in me for quality, huh, pals? anyway it’s late and i’m real tired but i wanted to post it so i’m going to. props to discord for helping me try to find a town name better than Bad Times Town or Yikesville. Tho imo Yikesville sounds like a cool place to licence. anyway goodnight

Of course, you don’t own a suitcase anymore. Hell has no reason to send you anywhere. You grab toiletries, a few changes of clothes, and whatever odds and ends you think are necessary along the way, and you shove them as neatly as you can into a trash bag. Before leaving, you backtrack to the kitchen and grab a few bottles of whiskey. Wrapping them in your spare shirts for protection, you wonder if it’s setting yourself up for failure, planning to go numb with alcohol even after leaving. You hoist the bag onto your shoulder and decide that you’ve done worse; one more mistake shouldn’t matter. 

You arrive in the parking lot within twenty minutes. Smithers is already there, shoving plastic shopping bags full of clothes into the backseat of the hummer. He closes the door and jogs back towards the apartment complex. “I’m grabbing one last thing,” he says in passing. 

You nod and pack your stuff in, waiting for him to come back. Ten minutes of kicking around pass, and he’s still not down, so you decide to check on him.

When you get back inside, the front door to his apartment is ajar. The lights are all off, but they’ve been that way every other time you’ve glimpsed into Smithers’ place, too. You push inside without knocking. 

“Smithers?” Your eyes cut through the darkness like a fish through heavy water. You don’t see your partner, but as you creep into his apartment, what you find is enough to make you forget about his lateness for a moment. 

As they did with you, your bosses outfitted Smithers’ place with basic amenities and furniture. However, of their interior design was for naught, here, because everything they provided has been shoved off to the sides of the room. Cushions have been removed and hoarded into a corner along with bedclothes, creating a heap you assume is Smithers’ sleeping place. Another corner of the room holds a pile of empty cardboard and plastic containers from various fast-food joints—all the dinners Smithers must have ordered in over the weeks. The whole place smells stagnant and vaguely sour. It’s like you’ve stumbled into an animal’s cage. 

The living room seems to be the main area of activity. A quick glance towards the kitchen reveals a scene as un-lived in as any room in a furniture catalogue. You step carefully around the apartment, as if any wrong move could trigger an Indiana Jones-like trap. You’re about to inch open the door to the bedroom when Smithers comes barging through it, carrying a heavy load, knocking into you and setting the contents of his arms free. 

Dozens of papers go zipping off in every direction. “Oh, shit,” Smithers says, and scrambles after them. You frown. 

“What’s all this?”

“My stuff. Don’t touch it.”

You grab a paper off the ground. It appears to be a printout of an online newspaper, a small-town publication for a place you’ve never heard of, called Drystone. The main headline is about the success of a recent charity fun run. Nothing special. 

“Hey-hey-hey! That’s mine! That’s mine and you don’t get to look at it.” Smithers rushes over and swipes it for you, accidentally letting most of the papers he re-gathered fly loose when he does. Muttering a curse, he crouches to resume picking them up again. 

“What’s it even from?”

“Library records, internet research. But mostly, none of your business.”

“This is that hobby of yours? Researching some random town—“ you stop. “That’s where you’re headed, isn’t it?”

He mumbles, “Yeah.”

“You’ve been planning this for a while.”

“Or something like it. I just had to figure out my way around our jobs.”

You give his place a look-around again. The literal “living room”, the untouched kitchen, and the bedroom that must have operated as a research hub. “Was it really necessary to put yourself in these conditions in the meantime?”

“Not like they bother me. Come on.” He’s got his papers back now, held in a bundle close to his chest. “I sorted through everything and these are the most important papers. Get me a bag to put this all in, then we can go.”

You help him pack his research into another plastic bag, and finally, you’re off. When you reach the hummer, Smithers slides in shotgun, keeping his papers in his lap for the trip. You put the vehicle in reverse and sit dumbfounded, staring straight out the windshield. “Where the fuck do I go.”

“I know the way, just head South out of the city and continue on the main highway for a while. It’ll be fine.”

After a few seconds’ pause it kicks in that this is really happening. You’re leaving. The morning is black as mold, he world outside is hidden as if it hasn’t even grown in yet, but as surreal as it all is, it’s also incredibly real. The sweat forming between your palms and the steering wheel, and the mild ache of tiredness behind your eyes—that’s all real. It’s happening, now. 

Smithers shifts further back in his seat, hugging his papers close as he stares out the side window. You pull out of the parking lot and onto the mostly-empty road. And now you’re both staring, observers and participants to your actions all at once. 

You’re betraying the devil. Probably, you’re creating a vendetta that’ll end badly for you, one way or the other. But you’re doing more than just that, too, because there’s only one reason why your partner could be so intent on going to a specific small town. 

You press your door down on the gas, going just enough above the speed limit to feel purposeful. You’re taking Smithers home.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back on the computer, ready for some roadtrip fun!!! hope youre all having a good summer so far--ive meant to do nothing but work on this an other projects with my free time, but so far ive mostly only eaten too much and wasted time on instagram. aint that just the way.

Once you’re driving you expect everything to break down like a clump of dirt under pressure, but Smithers falls asleep within moments, his potential for chaos curling up in the seat with him. The trip’s first hours are as personal as a breath, and you calm your trepidation about the future by focusing on the road. It carries you like a vein. All you need to do is believe in its promise, and it will take you somewhere safe—nothing’s cared for you in this way in a while.   
The sun rises after a couple of hours, light beading on the horizon like an upwelling of blood. It burns your eyes, making you feel vampiric and tired, but you squint and keep driving because there’s nothing else to do. Another hour passes and Smithers squirms, awaking with a quiet sigh.   
“Mmm,” he mumbles, stretching out against the seatbelt, twisting his wrists and clenching his fingers. “What’sa time?”  
“It’s about six-thirty.”  
“Mm.” He looks out the window, although there isn’t much to see. Only a parallel highway, an expanse of field, and trees that huddle in cliques here and there. All of this, travelling on and on towards infinity. Smithers clucks his tongue a few times and turns to you.   
“We should eat.”  
“There’s a rest stop coming up in about ten minutes,” you say. Honestly, a pit stop would be good, to stretch your legs and get some caffeine into this body of yours. You’ve gotten by on work days without coffee for a while, but you’re likely to pass out at the wheel if you go much longer without either rest or a pick-me-up.   
Smithers nods and goes back to watching the scenery. It’s a few minutes later when he grins, piping up, “We should get snacks, too. Can’t have a proper road trip without driving snacks!”   
You side-eye him before looking back to the road. “I wouldn’t call this a road trip,” you say.  
“That’s because you have the personality of a peeled grape. Come on! We’re already dead, and already fugitives. Why not make the most of our situation, have a little fun?”  
“I wouldn’t say we’re fugitives, either.”  
“We would be, if they cared enough to notice we’re missing. But, just because others don’t acknowledge it, it doesn’t mean we aren’t badasses. We should be wearing sunglasses, driving way over the speed limit, and blaring rock music.” He drums on the top of his paper-filled bag. You grip the steering wheel tighter.   
“I am not doing any of that, but especially not the speeding. This is our only vehicle, and if we get in a crash, our plans are ruined. That’s not even imagining what would happen if our bodies get mutilated in an accident. It’d take so long to revive, we’d be in a morgue by then, and I don’t want to scare the living shit out of innocent people by clambering out of the cadaver fridge at the wrong time.”  
“That would be awesome!”  
“That would cause the world’s next apocalypse scare. We don’t need people believing in zombies. We need to stay on the down low.”  
Smithers sticks his tongue out. “Fine. One out of three isn’t too bad, right?” He reaches for the radio, switching it on. You smack his hand away and turn it off before he can find a rock station—radio control has already been debated during long workdays, and you know that whatever Smithers chooses will find a way to get on your nerves.   
“We’re almost at the stop. Can you remain only marginally agitating until we’re on the road again?”  
“Buzzkill,” Smithers huffs, but he folds his arms and stays quiet, so you count it as a win. Not soon after, you pull into the gravel lot of a gas station.   
The building is off-white like an unbrushed tooth. Rickety spelling advertises cold booze, hot food, live bait (leeches and worms!!!) on a whiteboard stood up against the wall. You pull into one of the gas pumps and Smithers hops out the other side. “I’ve gotta piss. Meet you inside,” he says, and waltzes to the door.  
After filling the hummer you head in, too, triggering a blaring alarm when you step inside. The inside of the building is as nice as the outside. Smithers is returning a bathroom key to the middle-aged woman cashier, and when he sees you, he bounces over to ask, “What’s the plan, man? What are we getting?”  
“I need coffee. Whatever else you want, get. We’re going to be driving for a while, I assume.”   
You hope that, like a toddler, Smithers can be placated with treats. Even if you have to pay for a pile of junk food, you’d rather see him spoiled and passive than angry in a confined space hurtling along the highway. As he skips through the aisles, you get a coffee from the drippy machine in the back of the store and head to the register to pay. “Ring me up for whatever the kid brings over,” you say.   
The cashier plucks your credit card from your hand. Her fat arms sag low like two unfilled ship sales, but her fingernails are long and recently manicured. Precise digits pluck out your costs on the register as Smithers brings more and more to the counter. She watches him move, then her eyes sweep over to you.   
“Father-son trip?” she asks. You choke on your shitty coffee.   
“No. No no no. He’s not my kid, just my problem. I mean. Uh.”  
Smithers ducks into the conversation when he sets and armful of drinks on the counter. “We work together,” is the lifeline he offers before racing off again.   
“Yeah, yeah. It’s a business trip. Corporate thought it’d be cheaper to have us drive out rather than fly—typical.”  
The cashier nods, then looks at Smithers’ goods. Her bottom lip pulls up taut against the top one, wrinkling her chin. “If these count as business expenses, it might have been cheaper to take the flight.”  
For the first time, you pay attention to what your partner is grabbing. The woman’s right, he’s piled items high on the counter, but it’s not just that. You’d expected him to grab chips and candy and energy drinks. Yes, you see a bag of salt and vinegar chips, and a grape soda or two, but that’s it for junk. The rest of his selection consists of premade sandwiches and wrinkling fruits, but it’s mostly canned non-perishables. In addition, he’s grabbed a can opener, a first-aid kit, a toothbrush, a Swiss army knife, and duct tape.   
The understanding comes like a fall onto a punctured air mattress. These aren’t snacks; they’re survival gear.   
“This should be it,” Smithers says when he returns again, this time with an egg-bagel sandwich from the ‘hot food’ section. He also tries to shove a blueberry muffin into your hands. “You have to eat something for breakfast. No way am I dealing with a driver who passes out from low blood sugar or some shit.”  
“Smithers,” you say.  
“Seriously. You act like you’re a robot, which I’d believe if I hadn’t seen you bleed. Isn’t it the older generation that’s supposed to be on the youngsters’ cases for skipping real meals?”  
“Smithers, I told you to get snacks. This looks like enough food to last days, if you’re going into hiding in a bunker somewhere. We’re stopping in more than one place, you know.”  
Smithers’ free hand clenches into the side of his thigh. “I know. I just want to be prepared. And if we don’t go through it all, it can be for after.”  
“After?”  
Smithers grinds his teeth. You frown at his hoard of supplies, then shake your head.   
“Whatever. Just, go around again, anyway, and pick out more treats. Things you like.”  
He gives a long look but obeys. The cashier—Lisa, you finally catch on her nametag—packs everything into bags and you carry most of it out, shoving it into the space between the front and back seats. When you get into the driver’s seat, Smithers hands you the muffin. You eat with one hand, drive with the other, and he scarfs down his breakfast before grabbing licorice laces from one of the bags. He chews, looks out the window, and taps on his bag of papers. As was previously agreed, his pestering ends as soon as you’re on the main road again.   
“Can’t we listen to something? Anything?”  
“You have a phone, don’t you? Listen to something on there.”  
“I have one,” he pulls it out of his pocket, “but no earbuds. That’s the one thing we forget to get while stopping.”  
“Then I guess you’re doomed until we stop again.”  
He’s about to argue, but his phone lights up in his grip, blaring a ringtone. Smithers yelps; you swerve towards the ditch but stomp on the break in time. Coming to a stop on the side of the road, you stare at the device. Smithers drops his phone into a cup holder, as if it was giving him hives.   
“Please tell me you made friends while I wasn’t paying attention,” you say. “You asked Mark out, or you got the number of one of our neighbours. Just tell me, please, that the person calling you is human.”  
Smithers whines. “Nope.”  
You pick up the phone. Sure enough, the number calling is a row of sixes, strung together like hanging ornaments.   
“If we don’t pick up, maybe they’ll go away?” Smithers hopes aloud. You nod, waiting out the ringing. It continues for, say, a millennium or two, but the phone finally goes silent. You look at Smithers. He looks at you. You both exhale enough air to quell a forest fire.   
Then a text pops up. Wrong choice, is all it says, and the second you read it your soul tumbles inwards, and your vision goes black like fresh asphalt, and all you can feel is deep, deep regret.   
You’ve known the pain of death, a few times over. You’re familiar with the agony of being doomed to your fate. However, now that you’ve fought against that fate, you’re about to experience something much worse; in Hell, you become an Agent if you’re lucky. You get tortured for eternity if you’re normal. If you’re in Satan’s bad books, though, you can’t imagine what punishment you receive.   
It looks like you’re about to find out.


End file.
